Next-gen drones, talking sunglasses and other Day Two sights from CES

CES doesn't officially open until Wednesday but that didn't stop vendors trotting out more goodies at a series of press conferences the day before. Intel and Sony were the big draws, and the gadgets ranged from collision-avoidance drones to turntables, which are making a resurgence at CES. Here's some of the things that caught our eye.

The Typhoon H is a drone that dodges obstacles automatically

Intel's CEO whipped out a collision-avoidance drone in his keynote Tuesday night and said it was priced for the masses, though at close to $2,000 that's up for debate. Still, it's a pretty impressive piece of technology, using Intel's 3D depth-sensing RealSense technology to avoid trees and other obstacles a sit flies around. It also has a 4K camera on board and the wongs fold up to make it portable. It's due in the first half of the year.

A more compact LIDAR for your autonomous car

You might not have heard of Velodyne, but the company provides the type of all-seeing laser imaging sensor that's key to most self-driving cars. At CES, it showed off its third-generation unit (in the front), which is small enough to fit in the housing of a wing mirror. That means your future autonomous vehicle won't have a goofy spinning sensor on the roof.

Sony's trip back in time

With the resurgence in interest in vinyl, record players are making a comeback at CES, and one took pride of place at Sony's press conference Tuesday. The turntable, coming in the next few months, will let you digitize records into Hi Res Audio files in WAV or DSD format. Perfect for those albums from the 1970s you thought you'd never play again.

Samsung's smart-looking smartwatch

Samsung has fancied up its Gear S2 smartwatch. There are two new versions, one in 18-karat rose gold or shiny platinum. The specs are unchanged: 1.2-inch rounded Super AMOLED display, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of onboard storage, and a 250mAh battery pack.

Sunglasses that coach you through your workout

Oakley's Radar Pace sunglasses are a personal fitness coach for athletes. Slip them on, say "Hey Radar" and you're off. A Siri-like voice tells you your workout for the day and offers helpful advice like "I can tell this is easy for you, push a little harder." The glasses are equipped with Intel's minature Curie chip, which has a motion detector and Bluetooth radio. They're due to go on sale in the first half of this year. Pricing wasn't announced.

The first phone based on Qualcomm's next flagship processor

The first phone to be announced based on Qualcomm's much hyped Snapdragon 820 processor is made by a company you've probably never heard of. China's letv is known in its home country for making TVs, and it's branching out into smartphones with the Max Pro, held aloft by Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf at Qualcomm's press conference. It has an "ultrasonic" fingerprint sensor that works through sweat and grime, and it supports an emerging high-speed wireless standard called 802.11ad. There was no word on a price. Mollenkopf said 820 phones from better known vendors would come "later this year."

Samsung goes after the Surface

The Samsung Galaxy TabPro S is the Korean electronics maker's first foray into the Windows 10 tablet market, sporting a 12-inch Super AMOLED display and a keyboard cover that lets people use it like a laptop. It should be available in February.